Like Nothing Else
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: Twelve-year-old Peter Keating sat contemplating the house in front of him. A sketch pad lay open on his knees. One-shot.


Title: **Like Nothing Else**

Summary: Twelve-year-old Peter Keating sat contemplating the house in front of him with a sketch pad on his knees. One-shot.

Fandom: The Fountainhead

Word Count: 841

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><p>Peter Keating sat at the stoop of his mother house with a sketch pad on his knees. At twelve-years-old, Peter had never had an ugly phase. His brown hair was swept atop his head casually while the shape of his chin and cheek bones, sharp without being <em>too <em>sharp, made him look older and more dignified than a twelve-year-old boy had the right to look. Today, however, a frown marred Peter's handsome features, like a scar stretched across unblemished skin. He sat, tapping his pencil against his sketch pad, in silent contemplation.

Across the upswept street was the Smith's house. Peter wasn't sure what kind of house it was, only that it had columns on the porch that his mother envied and that he had seen houses like it a million times before. The yard was a bed of weeds and the sidewalk outside was cracked, but it was still the nicest house on the block. Peter's mother envied the house but loved the people who lived within. She loved them because Mr. Smith had just recently lost his job and Mrs. Smith was fat. Loving the Smith's gave Peter's mother a feeling of virtue and compassion that she felt she justly deserved. Being friends with the Smith's also gave her insight into the juicy gossip which she loved to spread around time.

Peter didn't know or care about any of this. What he did know was that today he had told his mother that he was going to be an artist and she had promptly told him, no, he was going to be an architect. When he had asked what exactly an architect did she had told him that they drew pictures of buildings that became the real thing. Then she had sent him outside and told him to practice.

So here Peter was. The sketch book, filled nearly to the end pages with his numerous drawings, was turned to a blank page that he hadn't yet touched. Usually Peter felt no trouble in finding things to draw. He liked to draw anything – from his mother's pearl necklace laying around her throat to the birds outside his window to strange beast with wings and talons. His fingers were never surer than when he put pencil to paper. He knew what he could create would be perfect in a way that he had never been sure about anything else in the world.

And Peter _loved _to draw. He loved it more than anything else in the world. More than all his toys, his bicycle, his bed, his house, and even his mother. Drawing felt right like nothing else. To go without drawing would be to go without air – impossible.

But his mother told him he was going to be an architect.

He sat outside and contemplated the house.

It looked like a house. There was nothing particularly special about it. In fact, if one blotted out the columns it looked just like any other house on the street. It looked _boring_. Usually that was okay, though. Peter usually had no problem drawing regular boring things and turning them into incredible sight on his paper. He could see as he stared at the house what it might appear as on his paper. He'd move those lines _there _and add some color _there _and…

But something made Peter dread putting his pencil to his paper. Something unspeakable, something terrible, would happen if he did so. He wasn't certain what it was only that he must fear it and run from it as far as he could. It didn't make any sense. It was just a feeling. But Peter knew just as surely as the sun would rise that if he drew that house something terrible and permanent would happen to him. He could feel something inside of him fighting a sudden shift that his mother had begun with her declaration of the future.

Peter couldn't do it. He couldn't put draw the house. His very soul was shouting at him _NO!_

The house across the street seemed to smile something awful at him. Peter knew if it dared try to draw the house now it would be a monstrous thing that would haunt his nightmares. He could hear his mother talking on the phone inside, talking to the Smith's it sounded like_… "Oh, yes, do you see my Peter there. He's drawing your house. He's decided to become an architect…"_

_NO!_

Peter stood up abruptly. He closed his sketch book with a snap and glared at the house across the street as though it had sworn something nasty. He turned an walked back inside, right into the kitchen where his mother was chatting on the phone. She looked startled when he walked in. There was something peculiar about his eyes…

"Mother, I'm going to be an artist."

His mother's face went slack. He did not stay to watch. He had stopped seeing his mother the moment she had told him he could never be who he was.

His named was Peter Keating – Artist.


End file.
